So Why Did You Do It?
by Val'drae
Summary: Ever wonder why Cuddy lied to our favourite cripple? Huddy friendship, if that's what you want to call it, and mild UST.........I forgot the disclaimer, you all know they're not mine


I've always wondered when it would come to this; the hospital was in lockdown, an armed madman had already shot one of my doctors and had disappeared into the bowels of the hospital. I didn't have time to think as my head of security informed me that the few guards we had on staff were being posted in the wards and main exits and this was as good as we were going to get until the police showed up to make a proper search. I made a general call to each department and ordered the nurses to herd the patients into rooms and lock the doors, but in the meantime there were at least a dozen different unguarded exits the shooter could use to flee; I sincerely hoped that he had taken one of them.

Ignoring both my orders and better judgement, I kicked off my shoes and flew down the stairs to Emergency. _House, Greg House had been shot._ No, I didn't have time to consider that the man who had so often tried the limits of both my patience and my wit was a mortal being and certainly no match for a couple well aimed cylinders of flying lead. For now all he could be to me was a patient who just happened to be on my payroll.

Wilson, no _Dr. Wilson_, keeping my thoughts professional, was staring with wide eyes and a dumbfounded expression down the hallway into which I knew House and those entrusted to his care would have disappeared. "What happened?" I demanded, coming up beside my friend. My _colleague_, I had to remind myself.

He turned to me, eyes pleading for an ounce of professional decorum, which I resolved to provide. "I…I don't know, I just heard the shot and it's House and he…" he trailed off, letting his arms fall limply against his thighs with a satisfying smack.

"Hey, doctors!" The lone security officer in the Emergency Room snapped at us. "If you're not too busy saving someone else's ass you may as well save your own. Take cover." I could hear the welcome sound of sirens in the distance; hospital security would soon have backup, but _soon_ could a long time when a madman with a loaded gun is loose in a crowded public building.

Giving a professional nod to acknowledge the guard's statement I led Wilson by the elbow down the long hallway. Doctors Forman, Chase, and Cameron were standing awkwardly outside one of the operating rooms, the latter peering through the windows in the heavy doors while all three of them tried not to look at the blood generously covering their hands and clothing.

"What happened?" I demanded again, drawing the attention of three sets of shell shocked eyes.

Forman was the first to speak up; not surprisingly, he appeared the calmest of the three. "He was shot twice, first one in the abdomen, the bullet never exited, it must have ricocheted, by the looks of things it's in his bowel. The second bullet nicked his jugular, that one shouldn't be as much of an issue."

I swallowed, attempting to mentally quell my rising stomach. Don't think about House, House with a piercing blue glare and sarcastic leer: House lying in a pool of blood and urine, looking helplessly down the barrel of a gun.

I stood on my toes to see into the room—_this_ is why I never go to work without my heels­­—I saw House's eyes flutter as the swarm of nurses and doctors attempted to deal with the bleeding. "He's still conscious, Wilson, go in there and talk to him will you? Tell him he's a jackass and he brought this on himself."

"Thank you" he said with meaning and entered the inner room to wash up and don his scrubs.

"What about the shooter?" I asked, a little too desperately for my ears, "Was this a random attack?"

"No, he was looking for House and he knew who the rest of us were." Chase said shakily, glancing at Cameron. I relaxed slightly; even though it was nerve-racking to know that somebody tried to kill Greg House, at least that decreased the chances of any more casualties.

"House asked for ketamine." Cameron turned her lovely eyes to me, hoping that I would know what to do with this bit of information.

"Ketamine? When, before the shooting?"

"No, just before they brought him in."

"His body was in shock and he was dreaming." Forman said "did you not hear him say 'but my leg is fine'?"

"He asked the surgeons for it, shouldn't we respect his wishes?" Allison Cameron directed her question/statement at me, surprising no one with her question.

"No," Forman interrupted with the usual reluctant respect he held for his boss, "what he said was 'Tell _Cuddy_ I want ketamine' It's probably some sort of sexual fantasy he's got."

Cameron looked troubled and sceptical about this, but I knew she was thinking what the rest of us were thinking. Ketamine had been used recently as a date rape drug, slipped to unsuspecting women in low enough doses that they were semi-conscious and hallucinating as the horrific act occurred; aware and terrified yet unable to move. Since then it had become increasingly scarce to find for medical purposes; doctors were finding other alternatives.

"He's right." Chase said grimly. "There's no medical benefit to using ketamine as an anaesthetic when we know his medical history. His mind will take sounds and feelings and fears and create elaborate hallucinations around them. Nobody wants their patient to experience that on the operating table."

I couldn't help but be impressed with their logical banter; they seemed to feed off of each other's ideas, even in a tense situation. _That's one for you House,_ I thought,_ you've taught your team well. _

Cameron sighed and nodded, looking down at her blood covered hands. "You're right, I'm sorry it's just that…" she waved her hands helplessly as if that gesture could vocalize what she could not.

I glanced down at my pager when it buzzed against my hip and sighed with a mixture of relief and resolve. "The bottom two floors are clear, why don't you three go and get washed up?"

"Yes, mother." Chase murmured, almost too quiet for me to hear; I chose to pretend that I hadn't.

I put my hand briefly on Cameron's shoulder; the young woman looked hesitant to leave her guard over the door. "I'll page you the second anything changes, good or bad."

Without waiting for a response, feeling that I'd used up my quota on maternal affection for the day, I pushed into the OR and began to go through the process of prepping to just be in the same room with the patient. A quick glance back the way I came showed that Chase and Forman were leading their reluctant colleague away. I'd have to find a therapist to help them with the trauma, though I doubted too many of them would be willing participants in that.

"How is everything?" I came up beside Wilson, who was standing at the head of the bed, out of the way of the bustle of doctors and nurses fussing over his friend. The confusion seemed to be dying down a bit; more relaxed, less chaotic. That, at least, was a good sign.

"They've mostly stopped the bleeding," he spoke in soft, low tones "they're just going to make sure he doesn't go into further shock before they try to remove the bullet."

I nodded even though nobody was looking at me "Does ketamine mean anything to you?"

"No, should it?"

"I'm not sure."

We were silent a while, drawing unexpressed comfort from the presence of the other as we looked down at the man on the table. At least, I was sure his focus was on his friend; I was trying to focus on the face of the man who had terrorized me for so long rather than the thick wad of bandages on his neck, a splotch of red showing through.

Presently, the lead surgeon straightened up and turned to glare at us, obviously not used to having an audience as he saved lives, but at the same time reluctant to tell off his boss.

"You'll be supervising his prep for surgery?" I asked unnecessarily as he discarded his soiled gloves and gown and scrubbed his hands. He nodded, also unnecessarily. "Use ketamine for his anaesthetic." I made a split second decision and without waiting for a response, I turned back out of the room

,',

"So, why'd you do it?" I jumped as I rounded the corner in the deserted hallway and very literally ran into House.

"Why are you still here?" I asked as we both stepped back, unwilling to prolong the rare contact between us any longer than necessary.

"No fair, I asked a question first."

"Do what?"

"You stole my miracle and lied to me about it. That's a job qualification for a priest, not a doctor."

"I already told you." I attempted to skirt around him but he stepped casually to the side, his cane blocking one side of the hallway while his lanky limbs stretched out to the other. I forced myself not to gaze sorrowfully at the material symbol for his pain and instead glared fiercely at the man spread out across my path. "If you go around thinking that you're a god then next time you might not think you need a medical justification for a potentially risky procedure. You needed to be taken down a notch."

"Now you're just repeating what Wilson told you. Are you suddenly incapable of producing an original thought? It could make your job a little more difficult."

"What's Wilson got to do with anything?" I said quickly, suddenly suspicious; if he was trying to trick me into admitting something then I wouldn't fall for it.

"Oh come off it. Interfering attempts at psychoanalysis are Wilson's forte, just as pathetically noble gestures of self sacrifice are yours."

I crossed my arms and held his gaze; I still wasn't falling for it.

"Besides," he continued, "he already owned up to it."

"He's doing what's best for you." I informed him as I hopped over his outstretched cane and continued on my way down the hall.

"No, he's doing what he has no business doing because he _thinks_ it's what's best for me. Besides, I don't care why he did it; I care why _you_ did it." House matched my pace down the hallway at a surprisingly fast rate considering his uneven gait.

I managed to ignore his pursuit until we came to the third floor lobby, at which time I turned to face him and give him one of my most brilliant smiles, the one I reserved for donors and the lawyers of the unfortunate victims of House's unconventional medical practices. "Really? Why, Doctor House, I didn't know you cared."

"You'll need a much smoother cream to get _this_ haemorrhoid off your ass." House's voice followed my retreating form down the stairs. I was glad that my back was to him and he couldn't see my triumphant grin.

,',

"So why did you do it?" House's voice echoed in my head as I meandered through traffic on my way home. There was no easy answer as to why I had neglected to tell House that he miraculously cured Richard McNeil from six years of paralysis. The answer was tied in with my decision to give him ketamine; my thoughts drifted back to that fateful morning; the protective rage I felt in the face of an outside threat to my hospital, my sick worry over the well being of a certain conceited diagnostician, and my split second decision. There was no easy answer as to _why_ I ignored every logical thought process to give House ketamine; which was just as well because he would get no answer of any sort out of me.

I was glad to be home in any case; it would give me some time to think about the problem of House, who would never back down when he had a bee up his… or rather _in_ his bonnet. I didn't come to any definite conclusions as I answered my mail and heated up a dinner that I had stuck in my freezer back when I still had time to cook. By the time my sister phoned, I still had not come to any conclusions but at least I had resolved not to dwell on the matter any further; too much of my day was already spent worrying about the intensions of Greg House.

I love talking to my sister, it's the only time when I can truly forget about the stresses of my job; sometimes when I talk to her I really feel like I all I have to do is close my eyes and I'm back on the floor of my parent's living room, sewing an arm back on my doll while my sister plays with her horses beside me.

"_So Lisa,"_ she asked predictably, _"are there any special men in your life right now?"_

"Nah," I replied the way I always did, as if the question didn't bother me at all. "My life revolves around the hospital, where would I have time to meet a man?"

"_At the hospital of course! There have to be tonnes of good looking young doctors there. All you have to do is point to the one you want and he'll be eating out of your hand."_

I laughed as I conjured up the mental image of Greg House, the doctor who took up the majority of my thought processes, albeit for different reasons than the ones my sister was hinting at, barking like a dog and licking my hand. "Come on Nancy! Most girls never fulfill their dreams of growing up to marry a good looking young doctor. I'm luckier than most, I grew up to _be_ a good looking young doctor."

As our laughter died down I became aware of the silence around my house; the CD I had been listening to must have died down.

"_Seriously Lisa, I guarantee you that at least one of them is interested. Look for subtle hints like someone taking an interest in your personal life, or going out of his way to ask you questions…"_

"Or barging into my office and demanding attention?" I asked evilly, the image of Greg House still fresh in my mind. Of course there was no way that either of us would consider the other as a potential love interest, although a small, irrational side of me did have a strange sense of morbid curiosity about the prospect.

"_Ah, so there is someone! I knew it."_

"There is no one." I told her, walking towards the other room to change the CD. "I don't need a man, if I wanted physical affection I would adopt a dog, if I needed an emotional attachment I'd have a baby, or for sexual satisfaction I could…"

"Yes?"

I screamed and dropped the phone as for the second time today I bumped into a tall, scruffy man with a cane, only this time he was wearing a leather jacket and was half hidden by shadows in the doorway to my living room. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?" I spluttered, too terrified to think up anything else to say.

He grinned and reached down to scoop up the phone. "Nothing to worry about, I just startled her, that's all." He soothed into the receiver.

"Give me the phone, House." I demanded, my initial shock quickly turning into rage.

"Don't be angry." He said to me, a look of mock sincerity on his face but his mouth still dangerously close to the receiver "I brought you back your pink thong."

"If you have any last words I suggest you say them now because that officially counts as your last phone call." I snapped.

"Absolutely, we meet up every Thursday, I guess she just forgot today." He said back to my sister on the other line. "…Oh, so it _is_ Wednesday, well spotted. Oh well, I figured that _Lisa_ would want to get started early. She's a very needy woman."

"Has that been your problem all along?" I yelled "You just place no value on your life?" I made a desperate grab for the phone.

"Not until Saturday at least, I've got a lot planned for the two of us. Ah good, I see she has oiled her whips." House continued into the phone, slipping gracefully out of the way of my grasping hands. "No problem, I'll tell her, bye."

"Maybe you'd prefer if I castrated you instead?" I asked him as he pressed the button to end the phone call.

"Oh relax will you, I didn't hurt your precious phone." He said, thrusting it back into my hands and turning to limp towards my living room couch.

"Too bad, because this phone is about to hurt _you_." I clutched the appliance as if it were a club and advanced on his form sprawled out across my couch.

Seemingly undaunted by my anger, he stretched his feet out to my coffee table "I'm sorry, it was rude of me to interrupt your phone call. I believe you were about to say something about your sexual needs?"

I could practically feel my blood pressure increasing exponentially until I was sure that my heart would explode out of my ears. I took a deep breath to attempt to calm myself, more because I knew that House liked making me angry than because I felt any desire to practice restraint. "How did you get in here?"

"You left your door wide open. Aren't you concerned about burglars and bogeymen? It's a dangerous city out there."

"I did not leave my door open. And right now the most imminent danger in my life is the possibility of a murder charge damaging my reputation at the hospital."

"Well you never moved your spare key; you may as well have left your door wide open. I did you a favour you know."

"Do yourself a favour and get out."

"Not until you answer my question."

I didn't even pretend not to know what question he was talking about. "Well as long as you're moving in you can wash the dishes."

"Come on, Cuddy. You had a reason for lying to me and I want to know what it was."

"I enjoy depriving you of what you want." I told him, turning back towards the kitchen; in my house, as in my hospital, I played our games by my rules and not his.

"Fine."

Immediately suspicious, I turned back to him. "What's fine?"

"I can speculate, I'm good at that. You have feelings for Wilson."

"What? Now that's just…"

"You asked him on a date but were too nervous to ask him to be a daddy, then you put yourself on a huge guilt trip just to impress him. Cuddy is in lorve." He said this last part in a sing-song voice.

I sat down in a chair opposite him, giving him a look of mock sincerity. "Does anybody ever call you Greg?"

"What?" He asked, confused.

"A simple question for a complex question, I think it's fair." I hid my triumph at having caught him off guard.

"My parents, obviously. And Stacey did, you should have heard her during orgasms, she sounded like a scratched CD."

"Everybody calls you 'House,' but Dr. House is the emotionally incompetent diagnostician who comes to the _right_ answer based on _no_ evidence." I continued, ignoring his attempt to avoid my question. "There has to be a name for this person who is speculating about the emotional well being of somebody he claims not to care about while coming to the _wrong_ conclusions based on plenty of evidence."

"What evidence?" He asked, sitting up in his—in my chair. "What conclusion?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Pretty please? How many sexual favours is it worth to you?"

"Is what worth, my dignity?"

"That's right, would you rather answer a simple question or answer to the hospital board once I describe the contents of your underwear drawer?" Damn, I hated that innocent yet smug look he gave; it made me feel like I was in elementary school being told off by a condescending teacher.

"I can deal with the board."

"Then perhaps I should phone your parents and tell them that you've been inserting frozen bodily fluids into your vagina in hopes of bringing a little Lisa into the world."

"You wouldn't dare call my parents." I said dangerously, even though I knew it was never a good idea to challenge him.

"It'd be very easy, but I think it'd be more worth my while to tell Wilson my ingenious theory, if you won't tell me the truth."

"It's because I trusted you, you presumptuous jackass!" I yelled before I could stop myself.

"Say what now?"

I focused my gaze on an undisclosed location on the floor; I hadn't meant to say anything but now that it was out I may as well tell the whole of it. "You were going through drug withdrawal and I trusted your medical opinion, you took LSD in the changing rooms and I didn't remove you from the case."

"Then why do you act like a fury with a stubbed toe every time I break equipment or assault patients?" He pointed out, obviously uncomfortable with the way this conversation was heading. Good, I was glad he was uncomfortable, especially because he brought this on himself.

"I challenged you, but never questioned you. Then, when you were shot you started hallucinating and asked in a shock-induced, half conscious state for a drug which had no apparent medical benefit and potentially dangerous side effects, for some unknown reason, I decided to administer it."

"So what you're telling me is that you have emotional issues and you can't answer a simple question." He said dryly.

"And then I trusted a whim that you had while you were pumped up on adrenaline. There was no evidence, no proof, not even a very definite thought process, but I trusted it anyway." I stopped speaking mid-breath, out of things to say even though my tone of voice implied otherwise. House remained silent, bouncing his cane absently on the ground and frowning at my crossed legs. If this had been any other time I would have made a fuss, but I could tell by the unfocused look in his eyes that he wasn't trying to provoke me; he probably had no conscious idea what he was looking at. Instead, I pressed my lips together and waited him out.

At last he spoke, his voice slow and gravely, I was never quite sure what that meant with him, although there were times when I thought that it was his way of deflecting emotion. "So you lied because you put blind faith into a superior and mysterious power which you have no control over, that career as a priest is looking more and more appropriate. Ever think of having a midlife crisis?"

"My midlife crisis involves a trip to the sperm bank. I considered investing in a hundred mile per hour death on wheels and a drug addiction, but decided that I have more pride than that."

He grinned, his startling blue eyes fixing on me. Sarcasm and insults were easier for him to deal with than emotional outbursts. "Speaking of pride, it's always good for my ego to know that yet another person worships me."

"Nobody worships you, House, least of all me. Your ego doesn't need outside influences, it's bloated and tumourous enough as it is."

"Only the insecure gods need constant praise."

I was suddenly very tired; tired of this conversation, tired of sharpening my wits against an accomplished jerk, tired of acting like none of it bothered me, tired by the mere thought of the inevitable confrontation with my sister. I slumped back to rest my head on the back of the chair. "So you have your answer, nothing is stopping you from leaving."

There was more silence from him, but I found it comforting, almost pleasant. I knew he was considering all that I had said to him, and if even a sliver of his brilliance carried over emotional psychoanalysis, which was doubtful on some days, then he would be mulling over the thought that my trust in his opinion outweighed my own common sense, at times even my own medical training. And it wasn't just trust in his medical opinion, he already knew that I would go to great lengths to defend that, but I trusted his whims, his fleeting fancies, his reasoning based off of soap operas and oversized tennis balls.

I hadn't wanted to tell him any of this because I had thought it would give him too much control over me, but now that it was out in the open I found it didn't bother me. For no logical reason whatsoever, I also trusted him not to abuse whatever little power this knowledge would give him, if any.

I straightened to look at him, my eyes piercing and analyzing; he quickly looked away and resumed his fiddling with his cane. I felt my lips twisting in a wry half-smile; he may know one more thing about my psyche, but he had no idea how to respond to this new-found knowledge, and was no closer to figuring out his own detached emotional connections. I hadn't given up any of my power with baring myself open to him; he knew something about me but nothing more about himself. And besides, I could still whip his ass into line any day.

More confident by this revelation, I stood to walk back to the kitchen. "I wasn't serious about you moving in," I called back to him over my shoulder, "but if you're going to insist on hanging around like an unwanted house guest then I may as well make you some coffee."

"I really should go." House's voice came behind my place at the sink where I was filling up the kettle.

"Well it's about time." I turned and, in a continuation of the common theme of the day, my body impacted with his stationary form. This time, there was no haste to distance ourselves from the other, no flurry of slightly panicked movement or startled exclamations. I stood where I was and allowed my gaze to follow the line of his collar up to his scarred neck, his stubbled chin, and finally to the twin blue orbs which were staring down at me. There is so rarely any physical contact between us that the tension between us crackled almost audibly. Everywhere we touched, or didn't touch, sizzled like a spray of water on an angry campfire; the brush of his jacket against me, the pressure of his elbow pressed against mine, the tickling on my forehead as his startled breath displaced a stray wisp of curly hair.

He was so close that I could feel the displaced air scurrying back into place as he turned from me and hobbled in the general direction of my front door. I released the pressure in my chest, allowing a stream of breath that I hadn't realized I had been holding to escape through my slightly parted lips. He spoke no words, said no goodbyes, gave me no nod of acknowledgement. I didn't show him to the door or watch him leave from the window or check to see if he had replaced my spare key. None of that had ever been a part of our interactions.

I knew that when he came in to work the next morning nothing would have changed. He would show up late and attempt to sneak by my office without detection. I would hunt him down and berate him about clinic duty, where we would exchange sarcastically witty insults and gibes about my blouse. We would compete for power the same way we always had, and neither of us were any further ahead from tonight's confrontation. No, nothing will have changed and that, I think, is the solid foundation for our relationship, however that may be defined.


End file.
